New book: AI for Busy Teachers
Teaching well takes more hours than you have to give. AI can help with that.
It’s out: AI for Busy Teachers
I’ve been writing this book for most of the past year, and I’ll be honest - I wasn’t sure it needed to exist.
There are already plenty of AI guides out there. Most of them are enthusiastic, optimistic, and written by people who seem to have forgotten what a school week actually feels like.
This one is different. Or at least I’ve tried to make it different.
AI for Busy Teachers is built around a single premise: you are already working too many hours, and AI can give some of them back. Not all of them. Not even most of them. The workload crisis is a structural problem and no chatbot is going to fix it. But a 45-minute planning task can become a 15-minute one. Reports can be drafted while you drink your coffee. Three different explanations for a concept your class didn’t understand can appear in seconds.
That’s what the book is about.
What’s inside
The core of the book is the C.R.A.F.T. framework - a five-part approach to writing prompts that actually get you useful outputs. Context, Role, Action, Format, Tweak. Once you have it, it works with any AI tool: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, or whatever comes next.
From there, the book follows the shape of your teaching day - planning and preparation before class, in-the-moment support during class, feedback and marking after. There’s a substantial section for school leaders on policy, phased implementation, and professional development. And there’s a Prompt Library at the back: 32 ready-made, filled-in prompts covering the tasks that eat most of your time.
The ethics chapter is short and unambiguous. The myths chapter is shorter. Both say things that needed saying.
Who it’s for
UK primary and secondary teachers who are time-poor, sceptical of hype, and want practical help rather than a TED talk. If you already think AI is brilliant and transformative, you’ll find this book a bit blunt. If you’ve been burned by edtech promises before and you’re not sure AI is any different, this is probably the book for you.
Where to get it
AI for Busy Teachers is available now on Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions.
It’s available in every other country that Amazon supplies, so you should be able to find it!
If you read it and find it useful, a review on Amazon would mean a great deal - it’s the single most helpful thing you can do for an indie-published book like mine.
Thanks for being here. I hope it gives you a few hours back.
David (The Barefoot TEFL Teacher)
If you liked this article, you’ll love my books:
📝 Lesson Planning for Language Teachers - Plan better, faster, and stress-free.
👩🎓 Essential Classroom Management - Develop calm students and a classroom full of learning.
🏰 Storytelling for Language Teachers - Use the power of storytelling to transform your lessons.
🤖 ChatGPT for Language Teacher 2025 - A collection of AI prompts and techniques to work better, faster.
💭 Reflective Teaching Practice Journal - Improve your teaching in five minutes daily.